A New Creation
Read time: 5 minutes
“To be a Christian, to have received Holy Baptism, must not be looked upon as something of negligible importance. It must be something which thrills the Baptized person to the very core of his being.” Pope St. Paul VI
Many people do not attend Mass, but they will have their children baptized. What is it about this sacrament that brings people to desire Baptism for their children? Is it a cultural thing? Is it just something that we have always done? Or is it something more?
So, what is Baptism? How do we understand the beauty of the sacrament? Is it essential? Is it necessary?
The symbols or signs that are used in Baptism, like water and oil are natural things that point to the supernatural. None more so than water, which is a remarkable substance. Scientists have identified 21 anomalous properties and characteristics of water that aren’t explained by the laws of chemistry and physics. It’s almost a natural miracle in itself. As a liquid rain, as vapour it rises up to form clouds. Because it flows, it circulates and purifies itself, offering each generation refreshment. Water covers most of the earth and its absence defines the desert. God uses the natural to teach us about the supernatural. No water, no life.
In the creation narrative in Genesis we read “the spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters”, and that the water and the land were separated in order to create life. Then God creates Adam and Eve. They are tempted and they struggle to trust God and lose their supernatural life. But God has a plan. He takes action to bring His beloved to supernatural life again. Water plays a huge role.
First with Noah and his family, after the flood the waters are separated, and the land appears so that life can begin again. God makes a covenant with Noah with the sign of the rainbow.
Then God makes a covenant with Abraham. Circumcision is a foreshadowing of the sign of Baptism.
We can trace Baptism to all the stories of the Old Testament, which will have their fulfilment in Christ.
In Exodus, Moses is born and is saved from Pharaoh’s wrath by being put into a basket and put into the water. It looks like baptism. Moses saves Israel by the parting of the waters of the Red Sea on both sides of thema- a type of Baptism. Leaving slavery to sin behind and to become a new creation.
Unfortunately, centuries later the Jews are conquered again and are led into slavery. But the prophet Ezekiel says “I will sprinkle clean water upon you,
and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.”
The Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan at the start of his earthly ministry is actually the culmination of the story of water in Salvation history. That started with the creation of the worldand as it flows through the story the sign of water gathers meaning. From all eternity God had arranged these events in such a way that when Jesus arrived at the Jordan River, everything that God had done in the Old Testament story reaches completion and fulfilment in Jesus. He did not need to be baptized. John the Baptist baptized the very author of baptism, so that all water is sanctified and made holy for each of us. And all the great works of God come to have their effect upon us in the Sacrament of Baptism. Baptism is an essential part of God’s plan.
There are many other numerous examples in the Bible that speak about Baptism, both in the Old and New Testament. I leave you with some verses from the New Testament for your meditation.
Col 2:11-12
Acts 2:38-39
Acts 11: 13-14; 16-15, 33
1 Cor 1:16
Mk 10:13-16; Lk 18:15,17
Jn 3:5